NEW DELHI: A plea in the Delhi High Court on Tuesday urged it to direct the AAP government and the prison authorities to increase from two the number of weekly video conferences with lawyers available to prisoners lodged in Tihar Jail here.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Delhi government and the Tihar Jail officials seeking their stand on the application for increasing the number of weekly video conferences that prisoners have with their lawyers.
The application has been moved by advocate Jai Dehadrai in his main petition which challenges the Delhi Prison Rules of 2018 to the extent it permits prisoners to have only two meetings every week to meet his family, friends, relatives and legal advisers.
The petition has contended that undertrials and convicts ought to be allowed continuous legal meetings with their lawyers in a week to help them better prepare their defence.
Dehadrai, in the application filed through advocate Harshit Goel, has sought that prisoners be allowed to interact with their lawyers daily for 30 minutes via video conference instead of the present practice of twice a week.
He has sought setting aside of the "arbitrary" cap of twice a week on video conferences between prison inmates and their lawyers.